Mario Coming To Smartphones?

In the wake of the recent news that Nintendo hasn’t been doing as well financially as they had hoped, a new report suggests that Nintendo may be willing to start developing games for mobile devices, as well as opening the possibility of other developers using their characters.

After things had gotten so bad at Nintendo that CEO Satoru Iwata slashed his salary in half, everyone knew something had to be done. Feelings were mixed about what exactly Nintendo should do. Opening up their stable of characters could possibly take away from the power of their exclusives. Developing for the ever-expanding mobile market could hurt their own handheld sales. So what exactly will they do? It is unclear at this point, although it seems they have something in the works for smartphones.

Iwata did note that he had “not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using our game characters.” Obviously, mobile could be a huge sector for Nintendo, especially if they bring their legendary quality to smartphones. I mean, who wouldn’t want to waste time with a quality Mario auto-runner? Theoretically, the smartphone market could bring in an audience (and all their money) the same way it did with the Wii U: by exposing a new audience to classic favorites. Most people have heard of Mario, even if they have never played a Mario game. Almost everybody has a smartphone, so it makes a lot of sense.

Of course, this is all speculation now, but the situation bears watching. We will keep you updated.

Author

A frequent Top 10 list writer and uber SNES fan, Blake can still to this day be found playing Final Fantasy VI on occasion, even though it is probably bad for his health at this point (we’re not sure he knows there are actually other games out there). When not writing, editing or gaming, Blake enjoys bothering people with his guitar, drinking more than is healthy and talking about this totally crazy weather. Blake is also very involved in the Game Informer community, and has a sick Minecraft world he would love to show you.